Twenty years back DARRIN CLARK found a rock ledge that would change his life. Over the past two decades he’s witnessed some amazing fishing and pioneered interesting and productive techniques for catching bream and jewies.
MY mate Mick took me to the spot 20 years ago. What an awesome place! Like most productive rock ledges, there was a good hike involved. It was about 10am on a sunny summer day when we got there. About a 100m stretch of beautiful and clean rocks with four fishy looking washes. Not a soul in sight. It was mainly sand bottom and not very deep.
I rigged up my standard bream rig – a tiny sinker running to a 2/0 suicide using 12 lb mono. I was using a small Shimano reel with a light eight foot rod. Nothing too fancy. The sun had a real bite and there wasn’t much swell. I wasn’t feeling too confident as I hooked on my first pilly piece and flicked it into the wash. Then my bait got slammed and I was on. As I washed in my first 1 kg bream at 10am on that stinking hot day I realised that I was at a true hot spot. We got a few more good bream then fished the next wash along where we found some big tailor. I was sold.
It was late 1990 and I’d only been living on the coast for a few months. Now I had a gun spot close to home. I started hitting it all the time. I soon worked out that it’s a dicey spot at high tide and it’s too dangerous on any tide if the swell is any bigger than a metre. Early morning and late afternoon low tides were perfect. I’d fish with crab pieces and clean up regularly. Bream love crab pieces. I tried berleying them up with some success but usually after half an hour the pigs were thick and it was hard to get a bait past them. Still, it was top fishing. I’d also target blackfish sometimes but I found them to be too easy and fairly boring. My favourite style was definitely crab pieces in the wash with no berley.
Then one arvo in the summer of 1993 it happened. My crab piece got nailed and I was hooked up solidly to what I guessed was a massive pig. I fought it for ages and had it very close and was waiting for the first glimpse of my biggest ever pig. Then up it came. Five kilos of solid jewfish. I was blown away. A jew on a crab piece? Unheard of.
I dismissed that fish as a fluke and just kept targeting stud bream. I was going prawning regularly and started taking live prawns up there. Live prawns turned the place into bream city. It couldn’t of got any better. Then one arvo I managed to land two nice jewies along with five huge bream. I knew why I got the jews – big live prawns. Over the years I caught a few more jews on live prawns but I was only ever getting them on the bigger prawns. I needed more. Then one night it happened. My old and weather beaten drag net ripped in half on some rocks. Spewing. No more live prawns.
I started using crab pieces again but found myself thinking about those jewies that by now I knew were in those washes. I was using pilly more and more. Every once in a while I would get one. But I was only averaging two or three a year. I was considering buying a new drag net. Then one night my mate Gossy rang me and told me he and his mates got some jews up there on pippies. To me that sounded so crazy it might just work. I was straight down the beach the next arvo collecting and then on the rocks targeting jews with pippies. Bream seemed like a by-catch to me by now. I needed jews. I needed my reel to scream. I packed four pippies on to my 4/0 suicide and chucked into the wash. My first ever pippie bait was in the wash for less than a minute when it got slammed and my reel started screaming. I knew exactly what it was. My adrenalin was flowing as I washed that 3kg specimen in. Over the next hour I landed a few big bream. I had one jew but was still feeling slightly let down as I stuffed my final three pippies onto the hook in the last minutes of light and tossed it in. My little Shimano started screaming again. Really screaming. I was sure my 12lb line was going to break but somehow it held. Ten minutes later I was holding up a 6kg beauty. Woooohoooo. I was sold again. This time on pippies.
Over the ensuing months I started getting a few more jewies. Around 3kg average. But still not enough to satisfy my lust for a screaming reel. They were taking pippies but not all the time. I began thinking about other baits they may like. A bait that might stimulate them to feed … Beach worms. There was only one problem. I was 36 and had never caught a worm. I had tried a few times over the years but it seemed hopeless. I decided to make it my mission that year to learn and after three or four failed trips I got one. I was so excited. To me it felt like catching a marlin. The next arvo I was down the beach again hoping to catch enough worms to target jews in my washes. I only caught four but they were huge – over a metre long and pretty thick. Perfect. I was on my rocks about an hour before dark. I managed to get half a worm onto my 4/0 and that made a pretty big bait. What a prime arvo. It was dead low tide, only a foot of swell and barely any wind. Anticipation was high as I chucked that first beachy into the soup. Straight away I felt it being taken. I let my rod tip follow the bite then struck hard. Anticipation turned into reality. Line screamed off and then came that all too familiar head shake. After a few short runs I washed a nice 3kg model in. My next bait was taken as well with the same result. They were stimulated. They were feeding. Two more baits, two more jews. I had four jews swimming in the pond from four baits and I still had four baits left. I was shaking with excitement. I was in my 16th year fishing here and I’d never had it like this. Never anywhere. At that moment I believed I was on the best rocks in the world and they were MY rocks. I owned them. I threw in, followed the bite with my rod tip again then hooked up to my fifth jew but dropped it within 10 seconds. I’d jinxed myself. I never got a touch after that.
I never release a fish until just before I leave. A released fish will more often than not spook the rest. I threw three jews back and headed for my car, totally satisfied. I’d learnt a bit that day. I learnt that the jews have always been there in those numbers. I just wasn’t using the right bait. But now I had it sussed. I fished the next two arvos there and caught another six to 5kg. Three days in a row I lost 1 and they stopped biting.
After the third day I started thinking about other baits again. This time the plastic variety. They might stimulate the jews to bite as well? I was thinking that if the fish were that thick they would have to take a plastic so the next day I bought a packet of pink seven-inch Gulp Jerk Shads, caught a few worms and headed to my rocks. I baited up a worm first to check if they were there and hooked up straight away just like the three previous days. I washed in that 4kg jew and tied on my Gulp. Flicked it out. Started slowly retrieving it and giving it the odd tweek. I paused and was absolutely slammed about 5m off the rocks. I lost it first run and as usual they went off the chew. I was over the moon anyway. I had hooked a jew on my first cast with a plastic targeting them from the rocks and I had landed 11 jews in four arvos. More jews in four hours fishing than in the first 10 years I fished those rocks. Could it get any better?
After that I always had a few packets of Gulps in my bag but for some reason I never used them. I just couldn’t go past beach worms. In my opinion they were the best. But I started thinking about how I couldn’t fish some arvos when the tides were perfect because it was far too windy to wash fish with a tiny sinker. I was also thinking how it takes an hour less to buy Gulps than it does to catch worms and I was also thinking about the only time I used Gulps in one of my washes.
Then one arvo it happened. The worms weren’t coming out. I couldn’t get any. I had no choice so I walked onto the rocks with my Gulps, caught one and was absolutely smoked by another. I was sold again.
That was around two years ago and I haven’t taken beachworms up there since. Not because of laziness but because I’d found a hassle free bait that I could use without a problem in a 35 knot nor’easter. An artificial bait that induces feeding as well as beachies do.
Now I’m in the 20th year at my rocks and I can pretty much predict exactly when they will be chewing by the tides and as long as there is not too much swell I get to fish them no matter how strong the wind is. I get onto the rocks now and if I haven’t had a hit after 20 to 30 minutes I pack up and go. I pretty much know that if I haven’t had a hit in the first 10 minutes that it’s not going to happen but I always persist for a bit longer. When they are there I usually get one in the first five casts. Quite often first cast. The most I’ve ever caught in one session up there is eight in just over an hour. I swear by Gulps. Five inch Swim Shads, Grubs and seven-inch Jerk Shads. They all work in any colour, though I seem to favour Swim Shads with a bit of green in their colour pattern.
I still fish with an eight foot rod and a small eggbeater and 12lb mono. Bream gear. I don’t know if it’s the perfect gear to target these fish with but it works for me. No different to the first day I stepped onto these rocks.
Things have changed a lot in the last 20 years but this place is still exactly the same. These rocks are my mistress. They are a part of me and I’m forever grateful to my Mick for showing them to me.
I wonder what I’ll be doing there in five years’ time? Maybe upgrading to 10kg gear to give me half a chance of getting one of those monsters that keep smoking me or maybe even using that braid stuff my mates keep telling me to try? I don’t know but one thing’s for sure: the fish will still be there waiting for me.
